People respond to authentic leaders.
They judge leaders who are authentic as more trustworthy and sincere. Leaders who are transparent and true to their values create trusted workplaces where team members feel safe and comfortable expressing themselves.
So, leaders work hard to convey themselves as authentic to win the attention and hearts of those they lead. Unfortunately, many leaders misunderstand what it means to be authentic. This common misconception confuses leaders and produces anything but leadership worth following.
The contemporary view is that authenticity is about openly sharing the true self through words and actions. By disclosing to others what a leader really believes, values, and thinks, they come across as authentic.
Less editing and filtering about what is in the heart and head equals more authenticity in this view. Authentic leaders speak their mind and tell people what they really think.
However, a leader being outspoken about their true feelings and thoughts or acting on their true values is not being more authentic. It just means they are unedited.
Authenticity as openness and transparency is a myth that can get leaders into big trouble. Depending on what they think or believe, what they then say or do can be viewed as offensive, inappropriate, or obnoxious.
Authenticity is more accurately defined as what a leader does the most often.
People know who a leader is by what they do most consistently.
The uniformity of their behaviors and actions determines how authentic a leader is. We know leaders for what they do consistently, not for what they say they believe or value.
A leader who thinks of themselves as compassionate, considerate, candid, or respectful isn’t more authentic unless they act on those beliefs. No one knows or cares about what is a leader’s heart or head.
They focus only on what a leader does with high frequency. A leader is not relational unless they act relationally, no matter how much they say they value relationships.
For a leader, the authentic self, and thus how people truly perceive them, comes down to what they do repeatedly.
Who you truly are is reflected by what you do, not by how open or disclosive you are about what you believe or think.
Continually adapting and flexing to differences in people and situations makes this particularly challenging for leaders. But authenticity demands a highly consistent pattern of style, action, and behavior that transcends situations.
Leaders are constantly invited to display who they are.
What they do consistently, and not what they say, defines their authenticity.
